Looking for some free preschool counting games for your apple preschool theme? Try this Collecting Apples game. It’s a great addition to your apple counting activities for preschoolers.
Be sure to grab your free printable from the end of the post and then stick around for more free apple printable for preschool.
Counting Game for An Apple Theme in Preschool
Do you follow specific preschool math lesson plans for counting? I have a preschool math curriculum that is non-thematic, so free apple printables like this one help bring a preschool theme to life.
And if you’re looking for apple lesson plans for preschool, I have those too.
You’ll find other apple counting printables in those lesson plans, including an apple board game, which is really an apple tree activity for preschoolers. Students get to play an apple drop counting game.
FAQ About Teaching Counting to Preschoolers
Preschoolers learn to count through practice. That practice can happen naturally through everyday activities and through playing. Hands on counting activities for preschoolers are a must for additional practice, as well as sensory counting activities and even some worksheets, like counting bear worksheets that are so popular.
One-to-one correspondence is the understanding that each item is counted only once and one at a time. For example, when counting a set of counting bears, the child does not count any one bear twice and does not count any bear with another, assigning the same number.
Practice should include lots of modeling by the teacher, and practicing small quantities first.
Preschool math is divided into five disciplines. Those disciplines are: number sense, algebra, geometry, measurement, and data analysis and probability. Preschool math instruction should include math activities in all five disciplines.
Apple Counting Activities for Preschoolers
This activity is the perfect combination of hands-on math and easy printable activities. It’s one of my favorite apple activities for preschool and kindergarten teachers love it too!
Materials
- free Collecting Apples printable
- die
- red and green buttons (for apples)
The Set Up
Just set our the game with the die and a small bowl of “apples”. We used buttons, but small pebbles, pom poms, or apple mini erasers would work just as well.
Here are some apple manipulatives you might like to go along with this preschool game.
Apple Books for Preschoolers
Having the right apple theme picture books can take your learning activities to the next level. Picture books help preschoolers make preschool themes more visual. Here are some of our favorite apple theme books for preschoolers.
How to Play Collecting Apples Game for Preschoolers
The Collecting Apples game can be played a few different ways. I’ll show you the traditional way, and then at the end of the post show you how to modify the game. This way, you get multiple preschool apple theme math activities in one printable!
Collecting Apple Board Game – The Original Play
The first version of the game requires that an apple manipulative be placed on every game board space. The players take turns rolling the die and removing the corresponding number of buttons, thus collecting apples.
The idea is that each button is an apple that needs to be picked up along that path and saved for the wheelbarrow. This is the concept that traditional path games in math follow.
Collecting Apple Board Game – Two Player Reverse
Once all the apples have been collected, preschoolers can practice counting even more by setting up the game for someone else. This is a good option if the game is left out at your math centers.
Each player will select a color of apples. Either green or red. (These are the colors of buttons I chose to use, but really it doesn’t matter). Roll and die and add the corresponding number of apples to the game board, this filling in all the spaces.
It’s easiest for each preschooler to only add their own color of buttons because if a preschooler hasn’t mastered counting or one to one correspondence, then it will be easier to count the apples. In the photo above, you can clearly see that the first child rolled four, the second roll was a two, and the third roll was a six.
Collecting Apple Board Game – Backwards Adding On
This version is the most difficult, and best saved for when an adult can play, or best saves for kindergarten students. Once you get the hang of this version, it’s a great apple activity for kindergarten.
Start by filling the game board like in the original version of play, with a button on each game space. Then, players will take turns rolling the die and removing the corresponding number of buttons, working backwards from the wheelbarrow to the top of the board.
The next player rolls and removes the next set of buttons.
Each set of removed buttons should be added to the same collection pile. And this is where the additional challenge comes in.
The player counts to entire collection pile each time they add to it!
So then the players must consider how many apples will be added to the collection pile if they add the five that was just rolled.
10+5=15.
The play continues until all the apples have been removed from the game board.
Get Your Collecting Apples Game Here
This you want to add this apple game to your other one to one correspondence activities? Think it will complete your apple theme preschool curriculum and lesson plans? Fill out the form below and the pdf will be sent to your email.
More Apple Counting Activities for Preschoolers
I’m Sarah, an educator turned stay-at-home-mama of five! I’m the owner and creator of Stay At Home Educator, a website about intentional teaching and purposeful learning in the early childhood years. I’ve taught a range of levels, from preschool to college and a little bit of everything in between. Right now my focus is teaching my children and running a preschool from my home. Credentials include: Bachelors in Art, Masters in Curriculum and Instruction.
